A TRIBUTE TO E.R., AND ALSO TO THE GREAT TEACHERS OF THE WORLD

Sidney, Mr Fox, and the Paid Servant, was the title of E.R. Braithwaite’s novel published in 1962.

In his The Measure of A Man , a spiritual autobiography, Sidney

[Poitier] writes:

“When I was a boy there was a schoolhouse, and it was one room. Sometimes we went and sometimes we didn’t, because we were in the fields most of the time .

“I got to Nassau at ten and a half, and I quit school at twelve, so what I picked up between Cat [Cat island] and Nassau was just  just enough to read the basics.

 

“But I had a great teacher in Nassau. His name was Mr. Fox. William Fox. We call him Bill. Mr Bill Fox,  and he was magical. I learned more from him than virtually anyone I knew.  I drew heavily on him as a model for my character in To Sir with Love” .